On the Courting Rituals of Angels
by Lady Daedalus
Summary: In which the reader may observe the Angel Tabris in his efforts to attract for himself a sad boyfriend that he can turn into a happy boyfriend. Put on your David Attenborough pants and marvel at this rite of nature. Or: An Alternate Qniverse in which Shinji learns his lesson, everything is Kawoshin, and nothing hurts. Cross posted from AO3.


"I feel disgusting."

Kaworu's expression slides back into its default setting of "amiably mild" in the time it takes his gaze to swivel from Shinji's departing form to Asuka, who is sitting across from him at the table where their homework lies. Asuka's scattered worksheets and textbooks are encroaching rather boldly upon Kaworu's territory, but they both know that Kaworu's not going to do anything about it.

"Have I done something to offend?" he asks, though he sounds as if he's only asking as a formality. Now if it were Shinji on the receiving end of that question, that would be a different matter entirely.

The two of them had been sitting in one of NERV's many unoccupied rooms, located next to the Eva testing facilities, as they waited for Ritsuko and her team to finish running individual sync tests on all the pilots. Then Shinji had walked into the room, rubbing a towel on his head to keep LCL from dripping onto the carpet, and Kaworu had jumped up like some gross albino puppy so that he and Shinji could do their gross puppy flirting. Asuka had been on the verge of chucking her hardcover dictionary at them when Shinji excused himself to go shower. Which reminds Asuka...

"Your stupid face every time you talk to Stupid Shinji offends me," she sneers from over her math book. "I'm surprised you didn't follow him into the shower."

Kaworu refrains from telling her that he's already tried that once in a previous life; if he remembers correctly, it worked out rather well.

"Why do you even like him so much?" Asuka demands, aiming to shake his mild-mannered façade. Not to mention, she's genuinely curious. It certainly couldn't be for Shinji's kissing prowess, and Asuka makes a point of saying this out loud, figuring that, surely, that has to be some explosive ammunition.

But Kaworu remains infuriatingly unruffled. He just looks the Second Child straight in the eye and says evenly, "I believe that good things happen when Shinji-kun and I are together." Not even a picolitre of anything resembling a confrontational attitude can be detected in his tone or expression. He says it so matter-of-factly, too, like he was reciting some well-established fact for class. At a pressure of one atmosphere, pure water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. To destroy an Angel, one needs to destroy the S2 engine. Gendo Ikari is a terrible father. Good things happen when Shinji-kun and I are together. Asuka might have found it sweet, if it wasn't the most disgusting thing ever.

She scoffs, her acid having been effectively neutralized upon immediate contact with the buffer that is Nagisa Kaworu. "Whatever. Just keep your flirting to a minimum when there are innocent bystanders, homo-boy."

"Homo?" Good Lord, he even has a puppy's confused head tilt down, too. "As in... homo sapien? Is this supposed to be a slur with regards to my genetic origin?"

"No, oh my god, shut up, you homo. I mean it like, homo as in gay. As in you are so gay for Stupid Shinji that the radiation from your stupid smile when you look at him makes me physically ill. Here - just... just look it up," she says, glad that she's found an excuse to pitch her substantial dictionary at Kaworu's fluffy head after all.

He catches it without incident and rifles through the pages until he finds his target. "Gay: Having or showing a merry, lively mood," he reads aloud, the slightest wrinkle of confusion crossing his features. Well, Asuka supposes, it's the little victories that keep you going.

Kaworu glances back up at her from the entry to say, "I suppose you're not a particularly gay individual, are you?"

Asuka snorts, jabs at some buttons on her calculator with the graphite end of her pencil. The entire plastic casing of her calculator is pockmarked from this particular habit of hers. "Yeah, you can say that again - not really," she bites out when she sees Kaworu opening his mouth. He shuts it upon her instruction, and drops his eyes back down to the dictionary in his hands. After some deliberation, he sets the book down gently on the tabletop, smoothing the binding down absentmindedly as he speaks, a faraway look in his eyes.

"I'm always happy to spend my time with Shinji-kun," he says, in the same frank manner as before. Then he frowns. "Sometimes, though, I get the feeling that he's not terribly happy spending his time with me."

"Yeah, well, that's just Shinji," Asuka dismisses, waving her hand for emphasis. "That boy would probably cry after having sex."

"Oh, I hope not."

"Gross," Asuka says reflexively, then, when she runs his actual words by the language-processing part of her brain, "Gross! Stop talking before I stab you to death with my pencil."

"It's actually very difficult to stab someone to death, from what I understand," Kaworu responds, unfazed. "I doubt you would be able to do it, pencil or no." He watches Asuka seethe with some satisfaction before he returns to his topic of choice. "Since I'm always content to be around Shinji-kun, perhaps it was a bit selfish of me to expect the same of him. I suppose I shall have to be more proactive in my efforts to make him gay."

Asuka's laugh is ripped straight from her; she's so caught off guard. Once she trusts herself to speak without her voice quavering, she chokes out, "Yeah. Yeah, you should do that. That's a really good idea."

Initially, Kaworu is a bit concerned - anything he says that elicits not only a positive reaction but encouragement from Asuka is suspect on principle. But if there is a downside to a happy Shinji, he certainly can't think of one. So he sinks into his thoughts, the ensuing quiet only broken periodically by Asuka cackling to herself behind her book.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Nagisa Kaworu enjoys a healthy measure of popularity among their classmates. Between his friendly curiosity about Lilin culture and what one observer refers to as "the Ayanami exoticism," he is rarely wanting for conversational partners at his desk. In the first few days succeeding his arrival at Class 2-A, several girls had harbored embryonic crushes, although it became apparent shortly afterward that those would never mature into any kind of viable pursuit.

"You have a very pleasant face," Kaworu had told one girl, who was allowed to bask in her victory for all of about half a second before he continued, "It's cute and round, just like Shinji-kun's."

Since then, those same students have learned to redirect their enthusiasm toward supporting Team Kawoshin ("It's a bit of a disappointment that we can't come up with a catchier couple name for you," the same girl had lamented later, to which Kaworu had pleasantly replied that it was quite all right, as he didn't require any external indicators of his compatibility with Shinji-kun. The Team gained several new members from the nearby eavesdropping students that day). It also helps that Kaworu tells stories with lines like "... and then I said to Shinji-kun, 'Shinji-kun, we have to pull our spears out together.' " Such stories are met with titters from his audience, accompanied by the inevitable "Yeah, I bet you did," from someone in the back.

Since the surge in Kaworu's popularity ("surge" is really an inadequate term, since it implies both that Kaworu's popularity had ever been low and that it has since returned to that nonexistent ground state; if anything, Kaworu's popularity charts more like a positive linear equation y=mx+b where b=100), Shinji, for his part, has taken to tuning out with his music to an even greater extent. Sometimes, it's turned up to such a degree that Kaworu can hear it. From what he's overheard, Shinji appears to just be listening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony on repeat. Kaworu finds this a bit odd, what with the sheer amount of Lilin music out there to discover, but then, he supposes, it is quite a nice song, and quite a long song, (and, he likes to think, their song) at that.

When Team Kawoshin had first begun to gain traction as an organization, Touji had been of half a mind to go and give Kaworu a good-old fashioned intimidation after class. It was probably a byproduct of having a younger sister - after all, Kensuke had commented before about how Shinji was about half a shoulder-length hairdo away from looking like a girl. But with continued observation, it could clearly be seen by anyone possessing even the most rudimentary perceptive organs that such measures would simply be inapplicable to the situation. Nagisa Kaworu was just too goddamn pure. Nobody of immoral intent, Touji imagines, could say "Shinji-kun, we have to pull our spears out together" with such a straight face when telling that story to an audience composed entirely of hormonal teenagers. This conclusion has even spawned a considerably popular word game that the students play when talks of the weekend have been reduced to a simmer and they still have spare minutes to burn between classes.

"Nagisa is so pure," Kensuke begins, "that you could drink his blood as a substitute for bottled spring water, and it would be healthier for you."

Class rep Horaki takes the reins, continuing the round with, "Nagisa is so pure that the other Eva pilots use his tears to heal their wounds and bleach their uniform shirts."

Next is Touji. "Nagisa is so pure that once, a hooker tried to pick him up, and he ended up paying her to listen to him talk about Shinji for an hour."

"No kidding," Kensuke agrees. "Okay, Nagisa is so pure that the resuscitated section of the ocean we visited that one time is actually just a spot where he peed once."

"Ew," Horaki says, but she's still smiling with her eyes.

The game ends abruptly with the descent of none other than the Angel of Free Will himself upon their group.

"Touji," Kaworu says gravely, in the sort of tone that typically heralds the declaration of the conferree's status as the virgin mother of a popular deity. "May I ask you something?"

"Uh... sure," Touji says, slightly baffled. "Although I can't imagine there's a whole lot I'm qualified to advise you on."

"You are friends with Shinji-kun."

"Yeah...? I mean, I'm not his boyfriend, though," Touji replies, with a pointed look at Kaworu.

"It is just... Asuka can be rather hostile when it comes to me. So I probably can't rely on her to be of much help to me in any capacity." Kaworu grows visibly agitated when nobody contests this piece of non-news. "As for Ayanami, he seems to care very much about her; he's always enquiring about her well-being, only I am afraid that the difference between Ayanami and myself must be something fundamental..." From the confused looks on his classmates' faces, he can tell that he's losing them, and he casts about for a better way to impress upon them his predicament.

He pauses, then starts over. "Whenever Shinji-kun and I are together, I'm pleased just to be with him, but lately I've been worried that I haven't been putting forth adequate effort to make him gay as well."

All three of them cough at this latest statement.

"Sorry," Kensuke wheezes, and to Kaworu's confusion, he seems to be holding back laughter at Kaworu's distress. "Sorry - make him what, again?"

"Gay," Kaworu repeats, his head falling into the same puppy dog tilt that made an appearance during his conversation with Asuka. "Having or showing a merry, lively mood," he recites helpfully, thinking that it may be either a more archaic or uncommon word, and that a definition will help to facilitate things. He recalls Asuka's parting words from the day before.

"Yeah, since it's a new Lilin vocabulary word for you, you should try to use it as much as possible in conversation. So you can really remember it."

Touji takes this time to confirm his previous evaluation of Kaworu. Congratulations, Nagisa, you continue to consistently meet expectations in performing the job functions of your position as "gay space Jesus." "I really don't think that's something you should be concerned about, Nagisa," he finally says. The other two emphatically nod their assent.

Kaworu fidgets in a way that makes Horaki want to coo at him. "All the same, I can't help worrying. Haven't you any suggestions of ways to show Shinji-kun I care for him?"

"Chocolates," Rei's voice suddenly supplies from nowhere - there's no mistaking her signature cadence, though. Sure enough, when Kaworu & Co. look up together like a well-synchronized boy band (400% sync ratio!) for whom absent parental figures are a membership prerequisite, there she is, passing them as though she hadn't said a word. She does not look up from the book she's reading, nor does she break her stride as she seems to glide past them on her forward trajectory. In the days to come, members of Team Kawoshin will mill about her as neophytes to their hierophant, awaiting the sporadic moments in which she will break her silence to impart her cryptic words of insight unto them before she returns to whatever plane her mind normally occupies.

"You know," Horaki says, once the spell of Rei's presence fades, "it is scientifically proven that eating chocolate makes you feel better."

"Helps after a Dementor attack," adds Kensuke. "Shinji always acts like he's just seen one."

"Make sure it's dark chocolate, though," Horaki cautions.

"Hey, I like milk chocolate!"

"If you must get milk chocolate, fine, but absolutely no white chocolate. That's not even real chocolate, it's cocoa butter or something."

Kaworu's eyes follow the flow of the conversation as it leaps between Horaki and Kensuke, absorbing the information with the utmost attention. Finally, he looks over to Touji, who realizes after several moments that Kaworu appears to be asking for permission.

"Well, I think if anybody could make Shinji gay, it'd be you," he says, keeping an impressively straight face of his own.

After Kaworu has practically floated away (Touji suspects that if the light catches the air around him just right, it's possible to see the little hearts trailing behind him), Kensuke finally announces, "New game."

When he's got the others intrigued, he continues, "You wanna take bets on how long it takes him to figure out the 'gay' thing?"

* * *

By the time Shinji finds himself looking up at a determined Kaworu standing in front of his desk with his hands behind his back, the latest game has already made its way around to all the members of Team Kawoshin. They're all listening when Kaworu says, "Shinji-kun," in the same tone with which he had addressed Touji the previous day.

Shinji seems a bit surprised, because this is normally the time Kaworu takes to chat with the adoring public. Kaworu is happy to note, though, that at least it appears to be a pleasant sort of surprised. Team Kawoshin is equally happy to note that Shinji removes both of his earbuds. For everyone else, he'll only take out one. Now that Kaworu's safe in the knowledge that he holds Shinji's full attention, he presses on.

"I am told," he says, "that the consumption of chocolate is conducive to emotional wellbeing in the Lilin physiology."

"Um... yeah. I mean, most people like chocolate," Shinji hazards when Kaworu looks at him expectantly.

"Do you like chocolate, Shinji-kun?"

"I... yes?"

Shinji starts when Kaworu suddenly plops a box of chocolates down on his desk with such enthusiasm that a few of the candies are jostled out of their designated spots. As he carefully rearranges them, Shinji can't help but notice that they're rather nice chocolates, the kind with colorful decorative prints on the top.

"You got these for me?"

"Yes." Kaworu beams. Shinji still seems confused, though, one of the chocolates suspended in the air between his thumb and forefinger.

"They are intended for consumption," Kaworu prompts after several awkward seconds like this.

"Uh - okay." Shinji complies, mostly to get whatever this is over with so everyone else will stop staring at them. He bites into the chocolate he's still holding, feeling very self-conscious as he chews. The tips of his ears are already turning red.

Kaworu waits until Shinji is about halfway finished before he asks, "Is it palatable?"

"Yeah, it's pretty good," Shinji answers, covering his mouth with his hand as he speaks in a show of modesty that Kaworu finds positively endearing. A grin begins to spread across his face.

"And has your emotional status improved?"

Shinji doesn't have the heart to say that he's not sure it works that way. "...Yes?"

Kaworu begins to bounce up and down excitedly where he stands. "Then... I have made you gay?"

To his credit, Shinji doesn't splutter or choke, and quite a few of his classmates curse inwardly for losing money on that bet. Rather, his etiquette from mere moments ago is forgotten, and he lets his mouth fall open at the same time his eyes widen in apparent competition with it. Still cute, Kaworu muses.

"I think you broke him," Asuka calls out from where she had previously been pretending to ignore the whole affair.

To Kaworu's disappointment, Shinji never does answer the question. He just sits there like that until Horaki rushes in to spirit Kaworu away to a different part of the classroom, where she gently suggests that perhaps Kaworu came on too strong and that maybe he shouldn't use that line for a while. Kaworu blinks at her, recalling distant memories of "I'm saying that I love you" and "I think I should go to bed." "With me?" He had thought that, in comparison, his approach this time around was quite subdued, to say nothing of the fact that those lines had actually worked. But he can't tell that to Horaki - he can't even tell Shinji; that would just be too sad. He ends up chalking the whole thing up to a combination of Lilin customs and the curious predilections of Shinji's glass heart that he'll surely enjoy puzzling out along the way. All told, he handles this small hiccup in his plans marvelously.

Shortly afterward, members of Team Kawoshin, as well as several indifferent members of class 2-A who are interested purely in what is unfolding to be a fantastic spectacle, set up the blog titled "Project: If You Were Gay" to track the progression of Kaworu's romantic endeavors. Students also use it as the definitive spot to place their bets on any number of topics, from the big ones like "How many attempts will it take for Kaworu and Shinji to get together?" to more creative ones like "Which genre of music will Kaworu select for the obligatory combination musical-number-and-romantic-gesture?". So far, the popular choices for the latter include "American 50s doo wop" and "Showtune. "The crowd hopeful is, of course, "If You Were Gay" from Avenue Q, although it's so unlikely that the blog's founders vow that if it somehow is selected as the chosen one, they will buy each member of the class a box of the same nice chocolates that Kaworu got for Shinji.

Speaking of which, Shinji seems to have recovered from the chocolate incident, though he still looks at Kaworu a bit warily whenever he catches him staring. It would seem that the time is ripe for Kaworu to be gearing up for another try.

It arrives served to Shinji in the bento box that Kaworu places on his desk three days after his first attempt. Shinji is staring off into space, as Shinji is wont to do, when he notices the box slowly inching its way from his peripheral vision toward the center of his desk. There's a post-it note stuck to the top of it that reads: "Shinji-kun! (⌒▽⌒) " When he looks up, he sees the incarnation of Adam sprawled across several desktops, legs dangling off the edge of the furthest one, straining to push his offering to Shinji with his fingertips.

"Shinji-kun shouldn't have to do all the cooking by himself," Kaworu says, voice a bit strained from lying on a hard surface on his stomach.

"You should get up," Shinji says bemusedly. "You sound a little out of breath."

Kaworu can't help himself. "Only because I'm talking to you, Shinji-kun," he says, and smiles beatifically. He stops himself from continuing along that conversational vein, though, because Kaworu wants to show that he has taken Horaki's words about not coming on too strong seriously. Kaworu's aptitude for learning Lilin social niceties may be somewhat stunted in comparison to his aptitude for learning everything else, but given the magnitude of the latter, the former often goes underestimated. Well, that, and working his way into Shinji's heart provides Kaworu a very enticing incentive indeed to improve. And to someone who has died twice over now in the pursuit of that particular happiness, a little Lilin socialization becomes but the smallest of potatoes.

He pushes himself up so that he's sitting on the desk next to Shinji's. "I feel bad about what happened the other day. So I have been taking instruction in cooking from the class rep. She has two younger sisters she looks after, so she's quite apt. And this way, I can attempt to improve your emotional wellbeing in a manner that is both more personal and more nutritional."

Shinji actually laughs at that, and Kaworu suddenly understands why the Lilin always talk about melting like it's a good thing. "Did you seriously do all this just because you felt bad about Tuesday?"

"Yes."

Shinji glances over to Horaki, who gives a confirmational nod and an encouraging smile, so he unwraps the box and pops a bit of the contents in his mouth.

"That's really good, Kaworu-kun," he remarks, making Kaworu sit up straighter. "You learned how to do this in three days?"

"Two," Kaworu corrects. "I started the day after. Does this mean I am back in your good graces now, Shinji-kun?"

"You don't have to say it like that," Shinji mumbles, sinking down a little in his seat. "But yes."

After this latest development, the mods of Project: If You Were Gay decide that, for the sake of the blog's integrity, it behooves them to bring somebody with a working knowledge of the Eva pilots' routine into their fold, so that they can offer their readers nothing but the freshest gossip. Everyone gapes when Asuka shows up at the desk that serves as their office to apply for the job.

"I'm doing this so that I can be sure I'll never have to look at Stupid Shinji's weird fish face when he tries to kiss ever again," she claims when confronted about it. "Let Kaworu deal with it; he's probably into weird shit like that anyway."

Her job mainly consists of writing up reports of their interactions during the time the Eva pilots are all together. When she posts one day that, according to NERV's patented high-tech rumor mill, there's some new heavy duty Eva prototype on the way that's designed to be piloted by two people, many of the blog's visitors suddenly change their signatures to include some variation of "We need to pull out our spears together, Shinji-kun!".

Project: If You Were Gay also prides itself on its photo gallery archive of the cutesy notes Kaworu has taken to leaving for Shinji everywhere, courtesy of the tip they got from Rei. The mods had been gathered around their desk/office, brainstorming ideas for other features for the site, and one of them turned around to dig something out of her backpack when she saw Rei there. "Watch for the notes," she had said, as soon as her classmate was sure she hadn't had a heart attack. Then she turned around and walked away before anyone could try to follow up on her statement.

The notes started showing up the next day.

Folded up into an origami cat and left on Shinji's desk: _"Hope makes the new world, Shinji-kun! I hope yours is a lovely day today. (｀・_ _ω・_ _´)"_

Sent in paper airplane form to the roof while Shinji is sitting there chatting with Touji and Kensuke: _"Smile, Shinji-kun! Or don't, if you don't want to. Seeing your face is always nice for me. ( ^ー_ _^ )"_

Rolled up and put in the barrel of his mechanical pencil: _"As long as I'm with you, Shinji-kun, I don't care if we get lost. ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ _"_

No one is ever able to observe Kaworu either writing or planting these notes. They just sort of... show up. They perform an excellent job both of turning Shinji into a walking blush and of entertaining the class whenever one of them is found. What they don't do, however, is provide any hints as to what Kaworu has planned next.

"Do you all even see yourselves?" Asuka demands somewhere around the time the eighth one turns up in Shinji's lunch. "Honestly, Kaworu's not even that good looking. You know how rats look all skinny and not as fluffy when they drown? That's what he looks like in a plugsuit. For God's sake, they haven't even held hands yet."

Indeed, although Kaworu can now be seen trotting at Shinji's heels throughout the day, and although Shinji has stopped bothering to hide the way he looks at Kaworu like he's the answer to life, the universe, and everything, it seems that Nagisa is so pure he'd wait until marriage just to hold Shinji's hand. Furthermore, the more time he devotes to being Shinji's shadow, the less time that leaves for anyone to get intel out of him, which means Team Kawoshin is becoming increasingly reliant on Asuka's reports.

Unfortunately, there's not much to be gleaned from those, either. According to her, the pair were stargazing together the other day after an Eva mission, "but nothing happened that you perverts would be interested in."

That particular mission had ended successfully, but with the four pilots stranded in the middle of nowhere for a while, because they had run their Evas past their battery limit, so they had to wait for NERV to come and pick them up. Asuka had not been pleased.

"It's too hot, and there are bugs, and when they're not landing on you or biting you they won't shut up, and I'm still covered in LCL, and I can't wash it off, and now it's going to congeal," she griped, swatting fruitlessly at a cloud of gnats who weren't the least bit dissuaded from trying to be her friends by her very aggressive antipathy for their mere existence. She tried in vain to wipe her arm off on the surrounding grass, but that only spread the LCL around and covered her plugsuit in grass, which left her looking like Asuka the Angriest Little Christmas Elf. She was very happy in that instant that Kaworu knew so little about Lilin culture, because he definitely would have said something about it had he known.

Rei just shrugged it off in her typical Rei stoicism. "Can't be helped," she said, watching a firefly hover around her knees with a distant sort of interest.

"It's not so bad," Shinji chimed in from his supine position, where he looked surprisingly content for Shinji. "This way we get to watch the stars come out."

Asuka rolled her eyes. "You can look at the stars anytime. You can even see the moon during the day; what's so special about that?"

"I imagine that it does get very lonely on the moon," Kaworu said, his voice quiet, like he was remembering something sad.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Anyway," Shinji cut in, trying to salvage what had previously been a pleasant conversation, "I hear that some people don't like it because thinking about how big the universe is makes them sad. But I don't really mind, you know, the whole feeling insignificant part. Actually, that's partly why I like looking at the stars so much to begin with, because when I look up and think about how the stars up there are always the same, it makes me feel like whatever I do doesn't really matter so much. I don't know. I think it's kind of comforting..." he trailed off when suddenly Kaworu sat up, the rustling noises breaking up Shinji's monologue. When he met Kaworu's gaze, he was startled to see him looking so solemn.

"You shouldn't say things like that, Shinji-kun. You matter to me." He paused, pulled his legs into a folded position, and he looked as if he were seriously wrestling with himself as to whether or not his next words were a good idea. "Because... I really was born to meet you. I thought so before, but now I know. And now you know!" He brightened a bit when he said this, although his overall expression was still wistful. "So now... hopefully... you won't have to feel like saying you don't matter anymore."

Nobody said anything for a long time after that. Shinji and Kaworu stared at each other until the last of the remaining sunlight dissipated into the extant darkness. There was a soothing, rhythmic ebb and flow to the crickets' chirping, which made Kaworu abruptly perk up as he thought of something.

"Hey, Shinji-kun, you play the cello, right?"

* * *

They tried playing a violin and cello duet the next week with disastrous results. Kaworu's playing was impeccable, so whenever Shinji made a mistake, he'd get flustered and his brain seemed to short circuit, which ultimately led to Kaworu frantically fussing over him for the rest of the hour.

"I didn't mean to embarrass him!" he grieves the day afterward to Touji and Kensuke, who just pat him uncertainly on the shoulder.

His head is buried in his arms, so he's only alerted to the presence of their guest when he hears Touji's voice say, "Oh, hello, Ayanami."

Kaworu raises his head, and he only catches a glimpse of Rei before she shoves a pile of papers in his face.

"Here."

"What's this?" he asks, voice muffled from the paper.

"Piano music," Rei says simply before she walks away, and that's the end of that.

The report Asuka posts the next day to Project: If You Were Gay very nearly brings Third Impact upon the blogosphere. After a long period of simply idling upon the information superhighway, the site suddenly kicks itself into gear with a clear direction, and by Asuka's account, that destination seems to be the fabled combination-musical-number-and-romantic-gesture. The exchange between Kaworu and Shinji, once removed from the filter of Asuka's less-than-forgiving commentary, was something like this:

"Shinji-kun, I hope you are not angry with me for making you try that duet. The last thing I ever want to do is make you feel uncomfortable." Kaworu had been waiting for Shinji to come out of one of NERV's changing rooms to say this. At this point, everyone had ceased to be surprised to see him there.

"Oh. It wasn't your fault; I just wish I had done a better job of practicing after I'd stopped lessons," Shinji said, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. He laughed sheepishly. "I just can't keep up with you, honestly."

"Don't make that face, Shinji-kun. I'd wait several lifetimes for you."

There was the usual sequence of silence, the white noise of machinery as accompaniment, then the flush of color to Shinji's cheeks at the signal from some invisible conductor. He gave Kaworu a half-hearted shove on the arm. "Where do you even come up with lines like that?" he mumbled, staring at the ground. "And you don't need to put my name in every sentence; I'm right here."

Kaworu shrugged. "You must be my muse. And I like saying your name. But we sound even better together, Shinji-kun."

"Yeah, well... apparently not," Shinji said, attempting to shield himself from Kaworu's compliments with self-deprecation.

"I thought we might try again, though," Kaworu said, and Shinji could see the telltale ruling of staff paper on the sheets he was beginning to pull from his bookbag.

"Sorry - I'd really rather not try another song. Maybe after I had some time to get my playing back up to where it used to be -"

"This isn't string music, though!" Kaworu blurted out with surprising urgency. "Sorry! I'm sorry. It was rude to interrupt you. But Ayanami gave me this great idea! You don't know how to play the piano, do you?"

Shinji shook his head.

"Right. And I don't know how to play piano. So now," he held out the sheet music to Shinji in supplication, two sets marked Primo and Secondo, "we can learn together. This way, you won't have to worry about not having practiced, because I won't have, either. And good things happen when we're together. So will you say yes?"

It occurred to Shinji then that he didn't think Kaworu had ever asked him for anything before. He thought the situation over. Even if he didn't really enjoy it, even if he turned out to be as bad at piano as he felt playing cello next to Kaworu's violin, he'd be the one doing something for Kaworu for a change, and that was something, right?

"That sounds like a good idea," he finally said, and he reached out to hold the other end of the proffered sheet music. So far, it's the closest they've come to holding hands.

* * *

They spend all their free time together now learning duets ("Yeah, I bet they do," writes one commenter on the related P:IYWG post). They can be found either in one of the school music rooms or in a heretofore unused room at NERV's headquarters where, inexplicably, somebody has seen fit to store a shiny Yamaha baby grand. When Shinji wondered what it was doing there, Kaworu cheekily joked that he made NERV get it for him when he was recruited so that he could serenade Shinji whenever he felt like it. And even though all they do for the first few practice sessions are warm-up exercises like running up and down the keyboard playing various chords in root, 1st inversion, and 2nd inversion or scales in one, two, three, and four octaves; and even though their elbows keep bumping into each other once they start playing some actual music, Shinji never does feel like he has to pretend to like it for Kaworu's sake. He likes observing Kaworu's learning process, likes marveling at just how quickly Kaworu can pick up new music, likes having Kaworu explain the difference between tonic and dominant to him. He also likes when Kaworu picks up his wrist to move it to the right spot on the keyboard, although he's not quite as conscious of that particular like as he is of the other three.

"It's easier if you rotate from your wrist instead of just relying on your fingers to reach the keys, see, Shinji-kun?"

"Shinji-kun, try moving your hand further out so that your fingers are on the edge of the keys; that way you won't have to worry about getting them caught up in the black keys during this sequence here..."

"Shinji-kun, if you just focus on the meter when you're playing this section, then you can just go by the pulses instead of trying to focus on playing the quintuplets in standard timing."

"Oh, I think that's a hemiola, Shinji-kun; that's why it sounds so strange right now - it'll make more sense in context, I think."

"I overheard you playing the other day," Kensuke says to Kaworu several weeks into this new undertaking. "Are you sure you've never played piano before? Like, you're sure you aren't secretly some prodigy who lost his memories in an accident but you still have the muscle memory, that sort of thing?"

"Quite sure. It turns out that if you practice something between three and five hours every day, you get quite good at it quite quickly. I recommend it," Kaworu says, as usual, without irony.

And the pair have gotten quite good quite quickly, having been given a considerable headstart by the fact that both of them could already read music.

 _"I think we should try something impressionistic next, Shinji-kun. That'd be a really good stylistic contrast to what we've been doing so far."_

 _"An Ode to Joy is resounding within me, Shinji-kun! You played so well yesterday. I'm so proud for you. ⊂((・▽・_ _))⊃ I hope you're proud of yourself, too."_

 _"You've gotten so good, Shinji-kun. (´∀｀_ _) I can't wait to show you what I've been working on. This time, I'll definitely make you happy."_

The day after this last note works its way into the tape deck of Shinji's music player, Kaworu finds something written in tiny lettering on the back of his sheet music: "Kaworu-kun already makes me happy."

"Nagisa, you're glowing," somebody says to him in the hallway.

"Indeed," he says back dreamily.

* * *

Rei is the only one to correctly guess the nature of Kaworu's combination-musical-number-and-romantic-gesture. In fact, Rei is the one person who has correctly guessed the outcome of every betting topic put forth on Project: If You Were Gay.

It comes on the day after a heavy rainstorm. As on that catalytic day some months ago, Kaworu has planted himself assertively next to Shinji's desk, hands behind his back. Though he hadn't planned it this way, the bright, optimistic post-thunderstorm aura that seems to have enveloped everything else in the world is really working in his favor. The sunlight that floods the room through the windows gives him some very flattering backlighting. The whole tableau is very angelic, in the traditional sense, anyway, not the "horrifying world-ending eldritch abomination" sense that seems to have become more mainstream in recent years.

"Shinji-kun," Kaworu says, and this time there is no need to wait for Shinji to remove his earbuds; he doesn't wear them around Kaworu anymore.

"Yes?" Shinji looks expectant.

"You may be aware, Shinji-kun, that there once lived a Lilin composer who popularized the works of Beethoven by transcribing his symphonies for the piano, which he would then perform for audiences."

"The story sounds familiar."

Kaworu inhales; he has clearly practiced this speech. "This composer stated that 'the more intimately acquainted one becomes with Beethoven, the more one clings to certain singularities and finds that even insignificant details are not without their value.' "

"You don't say," Shinji says nonchalantly, though Kaworu's choice of quotation does not go unnoticed.

"Technically, I don't say, because he's the one who said it, and I'm just quoting him. What I say, Shinji-kun, is that I'm sure you also know that Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor is, in addition to one of the most beloved works of classical music, of particular significance to you and I."

"That's right," Shinji confirms, not shying away from Kaworu's eyes.

Because Shinji's ears are free of their usual obstructions, he (as well as the rest of the class) can clearly hear the thud that the papers behind Kaworu's back produce when he drops them onto Shinji's desk with a flourish.

"I have studied this composer's transcription of the Ninth Symphony," he says in carefully measured syllables, so as not to trip over his own words in his excitement. "And I have rewritten it to be played by two people as a duet."

Shinji looks down, and that's definitely Kaworu's writing looking back at him. He recognizes the immaculate hand even when it's been transposed into musical notation.

"That is -" and here Shinji looks up to meet Kaworu's eyes again, "- If Shinji-kun would have me."

Shinji lets him know in no uncertain terms that Shinji-kun would indeed have him.

That same day, Shinji lets Kaworu hold his hand.

 _"Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced to in most arts and especially in the art of words."_

 _-Franz Liszt_

* * *

"Hey, Nagisa," Kensuke asks one day, "when did you find out what the modern meaning of 'gay' was?"

"Oh, that?" Kaworu says cheerfully. "I figured that out months ago. I'm not stupid."

If Kaworu were anybody else, he might have found a measure of amusement in being able to practically see the delayed response being assembled on Kensuke's facial features. As it is, though, he's more focused on tapping out an inaudible melody into a contented Shinji's palm.

"So... all those times you were talking about making Shinji gay for you and all that... that was just you playing around with everyone?"

"Yep. Well, after those first few days, anyway. And," he adds, pinching Shinji's ear, "I like being able to make Shinji-kun turn red so easily."

Shinji swats his hand away without any real rancor, then turns it with the palm facing upward so he can give Kaworu his responding melody.

* * *

 **A/N: And there, my friends, is my first ever fanfiction. I held out for a long time, but goshdarn if Evangelion wasn't just the angstiest angst that ever angsted. After a while one says to oneself, "Self, I think we need to write some fluff now." Hopefully my efforts were worthwhile.**

 **I was almost a piano performance major once upon a time, so both Franz Liszt and the piano scenes from 3.0 hold a special place in my heart.**

 **If you liked my fic here, you may peruse its sequels (this is actually part 1 of a trilogy) along with the rest of my fictional wares on AO3 (username lady_daedalus). I seem to get more response there, so I'm really only leaving this first one up as an advertisement.**


End file.
